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Wednesday, April 19, 2017

At least 200 hundred kilometres from Basse, the
regional capital of Upper River Region (URR), is Sare Alpha.It is a traditional agrarian village, like
many other communities in the region and in The Gambia as a whole.

At the village, the main preoccupation of all is
subsistence farming.

Since the formation of the village, at least 200
years ago, they have been alternatively farming on the same piece of land using
the same traditional farming methods and with little modification on the
materials used.The harvest has almost
been the same year in, year out.

But unlike some other traditional communities, the
villagers of Sare Alpha are receptive to change, change for the better.At the first visit of the officials of the
Nema project and at the introduction of the concept of Farmer Field School
(FFS), the villager jumped at it.

‘Nema’, is a Mandinka word adopted as the name
of an International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)-financed project
in The Gambia.The seven-year project is
designed to reduce the poverty of rural women and youth with the objective of
increasing income by improving rice and vegetable productivities.

Ousainou Sissaho of Sare Alpha recalled the
first time the officials of Nema came to the village:“When they first came here, they told us that
they have a project to help us but the help is not in terms of money or
materials.They said they want to educate
us on good and effective ways of agriculture, to increase our production.”

This was four years ago and it was the
introduction of FFS in Sare Alpha, the first village to benefit from such project
from Nema in URR.

Twenty-five people were selected by the
villagers to undergo the FFS training.Ousainou was recruited and trained to be the training facilitator.

The Sare Alpha farmer field school is mainly
based on rice cultivation.Through experiment
and practical demonstration at the field school, the farmers learnt appropriate
and best practices in rice seed selection, sowing, spacing, weeding, and
fertilizer and pesticides application.

The 25 farmer-students of the field school meet
once-a-week and they observe and compare two plots of rice fields over the
course of an entire cropping season. One
plot follows local conventional methods while the other is used to experiment
with what could be considered ‘best practices’ in rice cultivation.

Ousainou, the facilitator, said they started the
training at the field school even before cultivation commence; it starts at the
clearing of land for rice cultivation.And
at the commencement of the rainy season, the farmers are shown the best method of
sowing rice.

Sare Alpha and Julangel are two villages in
Upper River Region (URR) benefiting from a functional literacy programme being
funded by a government project.The two
villages are largely inhabited by two different ethnic groups with distinctive
cultures and traditions.

But one of the similarities of the two cultures
and traditions is that women do things on their own, with support from men, and
men do things largely independent of women.

This segregation is largely very pronounced and
prominent in Julangel, a Sarahule community.At the village, women do not sit at the bantaba, not for any reason, and men do not go to the market,
except in rear circumstances.But the village
market and the bantaba are directly
opposite, just the road that divides the village into two almost equal halves also
separates the bantaba from the
market.

But even at Julangel, surprisingly, older men and
women, mostly house heads, share the same class, sit in the same room and are
taught by the same person, thanks to the adult literacy programme.

This has successfully bridged the divide and
brought in understanding among the women themselves and between women and men.

Mr Marie Dambele, facilitator of the adult
literacy class in Julangel, said: “The education has brought in so many things
to this village.Sometimes, the women
here find it difficult to come to understanding on issues.I don’t know why but it was difficult go get
them cooperate successfully for long.It
does not mean they used to fight or quarrel, no.

“They do go to one another’s programme and do
things together but the collaboration and the cooperation among them was not
that strong to my own observation.

“But the classes they attend together now have
brought in more unity and oneness among themselves.All those who attend the classes together can
now talk openly to one another and discuss things just like we discuss things in
class.”

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About Me

The Publisher of this blog - Lamin Jahateh - is a professional journalist, with many years experience in journalism. Mr. Jahateh attended both national and international trainings on journalism. He is an executive member of many professional organisations, including Network of Journalists Against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in West Africa, Freedom House - The Gambia Chapter, Young Journalist Association of the Gambia, etc